If you care about something you have to protect it.  If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it – A Prayer for Owen Meany: John Irving

In my last post I explained how I was at a crossroads but added that I had come to a decision and I announced that I WILL be choosing the other path.  Like any journey there has to be time spent planning before you can set out, but it is too easy to get bogged down in the research and prolong the start date.  I am very aware of my own voice of reason which threatens to paralyse me: and if I am not careful another six or even sixteen months will have passed me by.

Recent events threatened to waylay my plans so I decided to simplify things and write a list.  Now, whilst I am one of the best at procrastination I am also the master of list-making.  This list however, was small.  I sat down and under the heading ‘What is Important’ I wrote down just  four things. There are some things which are out of my control, so ignoring the obvious I wrote down the four things which I believed represented my dreams.   I believed that if I could get these four things in the correct order everything would fall into place and I would  know when I would be ready to stop the planning and step out over the line.  With the help of a friend, I assessed the list in reverse order.

  • Travel writing is a notoriously hard market to break into.  The top travel magazines receive more than 3oo pitches a week!  Whilst establishing a reputation and a career many writers contribute articles to online forums for free and the majority of writers are unable to make a living from their writing alone
  • Setting up a business that can sustain me from anywhere in the world will take time, however I do have ideas. Those ideas were jotted down in the best entrepreneurial style on a napkin over breakfast in a cafe in Brighton
  • The experiences will happen.  How I interpret them and incorporate them into my way of life is up to me
  • The travel.  I already have the itch, I just need to scratch it and book that first one-way flight

The arguments for each became shorter as I worked backwards up the list, so, (deep breath)….. I should acknowledge that I had instinctively put the list in the correct order to begin with and I should flip the list back to its original state

  1. Travel
  2. The experiences and the way of life that I crave
  3. The  ability to support myself whilst roaming with a backpack and a smile
  4. I must write

The line is drawn in the sand.  I just need to step over it.

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